1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of information handling systems. More specifically, but without limitation, the present disclosure relates to loading a network stack.
2. Background Information
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for such systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
In information handling systems (IHSs), Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) may be used as a network layer protocol. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has recently adopted Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) as a successor to IPv4 providing a much larger address space and greater flexibility in assigning addresses. Currently, many IHSs employing IPv4 have not switched over to utilizing IPv6. The Department of Defense Joint Interoperability Test Committee guideline for IPv6 requires that vendors provide dual IPv4 and IPv6 interoperability. In some IHSs, this may require an IHS to load both an IPv4 network stack and an IPv6 network stack.
In some embedded networking information handling systems, loading a network stack may be a manual process. An administrator or the like could manually load one or more network stacks that may run at all times. An IHS may not have any means for automatically loading a network stack based on dynamic networking needs. Since an IHS may have limited central processing unit (CPU), memory, and/or input/output (I/O) resources, loading an IPv6 network stack when an IHS does not participate in IPv6 networking may waste resources and affect performance.
Thus a need remains for methods, apparatus and systems for automatically loading an IPv6 network stack based on the needs of an IHS.